The Social Media Cycle

What does success in social media look like?

As a business owner it means that you are engaged with your customers. You understand their challenges, concerns, wants and needs. Your promotion is informative but not "too salesy." Well done Social Media enhances your brand, increases your customer's positive perception of you and builds your authority in your niche market.

Social media has the risk of being a time sink. You can be sucked in by games or become engaged in conversations. Before you know it, you are viewing pictures of cute puppies belonging to friends of friends of people you don't even know. It can consume your entire day. This is why it is imperative that we schedule our social media time and have a definitive plan for our strategy and execution.

I found my inspiration for this article from a pencast on Livescribe. Michael, his account name, refers to this as the "Social Media Grind." He compares the repetitive tasks of Social Media with those of online games. To learn the game there are often many repetitive tasks to complete.

Michael advises that we should follow the classic 80/20 rule. 80% of the time should be spent on engagement and 20% on content creation. The content creation is based on content for Social Media. Writers of blogs are in the business of content creation and the 80/20 rule does not apply to them.

Social Media should be split up into Daily, Weekly and Monthly tasks so schedule your time accordingly and design your plan.

To get started you need to make sure your are optimized for success. Make sure that your have accounts for the following major social media platforms:

• Twitter - The highly Popular Micro Blogging platform
• Facebook - The Premier Social Networking platform
• LinkedIn - Thee Business/Professional Networking platform
• YouTube - The Social Video Networking platform

Make sure that you have accounts on each of these and create a well crafted profile for your business and your key personnel that will manage the accounts. If you already have accounts make sure that you information is current and relevant. If you have blogs make sure that none of them are out of date. Ensure that any other company information on sites like Google Places, Google Profiles, Manta or any others are current.

Twitter

On Twitter makes sure you have a graphically designed page that showcases your brand image. Your Twitter account should be a company account.

Facebook

On Facebook you will need a Company Fan Page and your key personnel will need a personal account. CAUTION: You might want to have two separate personal accounts. One that is truly your personal account for friends and family and where you are truly personal. The second one is for your business image. Yes you share some personal details but there should be constraint and it also is limited in your association with your relatives. The worst thing that could happen is Uncle Ralph who likes to rant extreme left/right wing ideas and your customer base sees this and is offended.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn you will need a Company Profile and bio/resume information on all of your key personnel that are linked to your Company Profile.

YouTube

On YouTube post informative video about your product and brand. Post video testimonials. To get started have one of each. They don't need to be fancy and they can be taken and uploaded with a smart phone.

• Company Time Commitment: 2-4 hours
• Engage with Customers
• Recommend others posts

Schedule your time in blocks of 30 minutes to an hour at different time during the day. Twitter has very specific high traffic times and you should match your activity to those periods according to your time zone for your customer base. The time commitment is scalable by the size of your company.

Engage with your customer by answering questions or posing questions on their postings. Follow and connect with people that are potential customers and experts in your market.

• Company Time Commitment 2 - 4 hours
• Engage with your Community
• Ask and Answer Questions
• Write Comments
• Subscribe to blogs, hubs, lens and more

There is no timing involved for weekly activities like there is for Daily. The key here is to engage, be seen and contribute. This will create followers, build credibility and build your online persona. LinkedIn has the ability for members who ask questions to rate the answers and you can be classified as an expert after good rating repeatedly in the same category.

• Company Time Commitment 2 - 4 hours
• Review your content
• Update your profile
• Unsubscribe where appropriate

Like the weekly activities, monthly has no timing involved. The principal here is to remain fresh, current and accurate. How many times have you noticed typos on someone's website, posting, contact info or other pages. These may seem like small things, but they are subconscious queues that make the reader ill at ease or distrusting. You don't want your content to go stale and to need to remain relevant to your readers.

The key is to have a plan and stick to it. Book time to work on your weekly and monthly activities. Daily can be booked as well, but allow for "urgent" items such as customer issues. You will want to jump on those right away. Have fun out there and post your comments, successes and challenges please.

Here is the link to "Michael"'s livescribe pencast.